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When is Blood better than Frost for Tanking?
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Post by
Elorivan
So, I've finally put together enough gear to have a basic tanking set - I'm past the def "cap," and sit at about 30k hp, and I don't have everything gemmed/enchanted yet. My current tanking spec is Frost, and I'm dual-wielding
Black Icicle
.
I'm primarily using my tank spec to farm heroics - I hate waiting for the dps queue to pop, and I'll be spending my Frosties on dps gear. However, I may be jumping into a few pugs as a tank, and I know that raiding DK tanks generally use a blood spec. So, is there a point where Blood becomes a better spec than Frost for tanking? If so, what is that point?
Post by
330965
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Post by
474779
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Post by
Elorivan
Frost is perfectly viable until hardmode progression.
Exactly what I wanted to know, thanks!
Looks like I'll stick to Frost, and just roll as dps in any raids.
Post by
228908
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Post by
mattdel
Frost spec is perfectly viable in hardmode progression.
I have Unbreakable Armor, Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell, Skeleton Key, Sindragosa's Fang, and 12% DMG reduction from Blood Tap. My healers prefer me WAY ABOVE the blood tank in my guild, and we're of equal GS. He may be able to self heal and conjure up a temporary boost in HP, but that HP is negligable when he's getting hit for 20k more than I am. Timing your CD's effectively is what will help make you easier to heal. Tanks are supposed to be able to take a whooping, not heal themselves.
Whether or not he's doing his job right, I couldn't tell you. The fact remains, either spec is good, if you are good at it. The increased healing of blood spec makes little to no difference when you have 2 holy pallys and a disc priest spamming massive, massive heals on you. You are wasting GCD's with Death Strike and overhealing yourself at this point. If I was to pick up a Blood tanking spec, it would be purely for boss encounters where the raid healing is more intense than the tank healing. I cannot think of a fight where this is the case.
TL;DR
Stop assuming Blood is the ONLY spec for end game raiding. Frost is just as powerful, from a different standpoint.
Knowing how to play the class, and knowing the encounters you are facing is crucial in being a good tank. You can't just spec into the wowhead cookie cutter raid spec and expect to be good.
Post by
228908
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Post by
385472
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Post by
Nathrizarri
Blood's focus= Self healing
Frost's focus= Damage reduction(avoidence is a kind of dmg reduction in math too)
Unholy's focus= Self healing+ Damage reduction(jack of all, master of none)
Blood as a self healing, can counter any kind of incoming damage. Magic or physical. Especially, Blood owns all trees @Sindragosa. Rune tap has exact same CD with Sindra's frost breath, so you will be reducing her F.B. damage by %20 percent of your hp. This number can scale with healin income bonus abilities. Blood also has strongest rune strike outputs. So gains its main threat from RS. But it's survival tools require your reflexes, knowladge of action process' and skills to be used effectively.
Frost has damage recution+extra avoidence. Unbreakable armor has really high amount of physical damage reduction. And strongest threat boosting survival cooldown of DK. With frost, you need to concentrate on your rune cooldowns, and boss timers; since there is not much you can do about your hp. Very similar to traditional tank style as you can see.
Unholy has self healing mixed with damage reduction. Unlike blood, unholy has its self heals "completely" from Death Strike, for that price, you can use 1 extra DS in 20 seconds, comparing to blood. And unlike frost, you gain damage reduction only from Bone Shield(frost has %3 avoidence, %2 damage reduction and Unbreakable armor). But for that price, you have much better advantage on magic damage reduction. Unholy is the perfect and strongest talent tree for tanking
"in theory"
. But in-action, you need to do as you do on blood/frost
"together"
. Watching in game process, boss timers, rune cooldowns, boss timers, your hp amount @ the same time is extremely hard, thats why you have the strongest
"passive"
threat with unholy. With blood your diseases+auto attacks
without rune strike
do 2k tps self buffed, This amount goes up to 3.5-4k tps @ unholy. When you add this raid buffs and attacks, It provides really good aoe+single target threat. Thats why you wont need to have scourge strike inorder to maxmize your threat. DS will do enough, thx to
passive
threat.
---
Effectiveness= Unholy>Blood>Frost
Ease to play= Frost>Blood>Unholy
Post by
Elorivan
Unholy is the perfect and strongest talent tree for tanking
"in theory"
.
... lots of other words...
Effectiveness= Unholy>Blood>Frost
In whose theory? Can you link something to back that up? - cuz I've never seen anything to support that. Maybe I'm reading in the wrong places, though I doubt it...
I can put
RF
on my pally, wear tanking gear, and roll a holy spec, which
"in theory"
is awesome for tanking cuz now I can tank and heal myself... and that's better than being holy or prot, right?
Post by
474779
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Post by
228908
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Post by
hellsslayer
yeah no offense to Nathrizarri but your dead wrong mate. Unholy takes infinately more damage than frost and doesnt have the hp or cooldowns of blood to make up for it. Bone shield has 3 bones. On a normal boss (about a 2.5 attack speed) that 20% damage reduction goes away in 7.5 seconds assuming there is no damage except for the bosses swings. And it will only be that long if you time it perfectly after a bosses last swing.
It is true that unholy takes less magic damage but thats the only place it excels. Unholy tanking can be VIABLE, but not better than frost or blood.
Please stop posting information that is wrong such as unholy being a stronger tanking tree than blood or frost. Its wrong information so dont post it.
Post by
dervasavred
On a normal boss (about a 2.5 attack speed) that 20% damage reduction goes away in 7.5 seconds assuming there is no damage except for the bosses swings.
Two things.
1) BS's charges have a 3 second ICD on being used, so 9 seconds is the duration under constant, direct hits.
2) Nath is trolling oh so very hard in every thread he/she posts in. It's quite obvious. Ignore it.
Post by
hellsslayer
On a normal boss (about a 2.5 attack speed) that 20% damage reduction goes away in 7.5 seconds assuming there is no damage except for the bosses swings.
Two things.
1) BS's charges have a 3 second ICD on being used, so 9 seconds is the duration under constant, direct hits.
2) Nath is trolling oh so very hard in every thread he/she posts in. It's quite obvious. Ignore it.
oh thanks i forgot about internal cooldowns. yeah he seems to be utter fail. but the one thing i dont want is for people to believe the crap hes spewing.
Post by
Kelborn
To put it simply - when you'd rather be at full health more often than being juggled at 70%.
Frost has the least defensive cooldowns of all the trees. Because DKs lack a block mechanic, we take more damage than other tanks. Blood compensates for this with Death Strike usage. Instead of lessening damage that would be taken with a block, we heal the damage we do take.
Heroics: Any spec is fine as long as you have a brain in you head.
Raids: Deathbringer Saurfang onwards, you might wanna start looking at Blood if you haven't already.
On a personal note, I raided ICC 10 tonight with myself as Blood tank and the offtank a Frost tank. She went splat on Saurfang and I solo tanked from 30% with a healer down from Mark of the Fallen Champion.
Healing yourself for over 9,000 with Death Strike is quite fun.
Post by
179128
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Post by
Nathrizarri
all information i gave is %100 true, no personal ideas included in my post. Its not me you, you are trolling.
Real the full post before you troll. All has explanation and reasons.
Post by
apocalypsa
Your whole explanation makes some sense, except that Unholy is NOT the best tanking tree in theory. You don't use DS for self heals; you use SS to keep thread and do some decent dps. Bone Shield only lasts 9 seconds, and costs an unholy rune, so while its a stronger cooldown than UA(which is almost useless coz of armor cap) its a whole lot worse than VB. Imp AMS and AMZ are nice for certain encounters as sindragosa or princes, but thats all. Some guilds let their dk tanks respec unhoyl for those, most dont. Also, both unholy and frost lack WotN which is the reason why blood is that awesome.
Post by
Nathrizarri
But if you take ss, there is no survival left for tanking(bone shield sux), :S:S DS is enogh tho, since diseases gonna close the threat lose by using DS.
I find unholy so good because it has abilites between frost and blood. But each stuff that it has from them, are not as good as original.
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